The performing arts get their due

Professional productions shine from the big stage at Drury Lane, Paramount Theatre, and Pheasant Run, as well as from smaller, more intimate venues.

Fox Valley Repertory calls The Mainstage Theater at Pheasant Run home. The production company presents a four show season March through December, as well as a two show Youth Ensemble Series, a Comedy Series and Live Music Series. A former dinner show concept, the Mainstage Theater underwent a $4.5 million renovation that offers stadium seating for 320.

Aurora's Paramount Theatre began its life in 1931 as an opulent movie palace. In addition to showing movies, The Paramount offered vaudeville, concerts, sing-a-longs and circus performances inside Illinois' first air-conditioned building outside of Chicago. The League of Chicago Theatres recently named The Paramount one of the Top Ten Theatres in Chicago. Today, the revived theater provides an array of entertainment including a Broadway Series of four productions September through March, as well as dance, music, and children's programming.

Drury Lane has been winning over critics and audiences for nearly 30 years. Affordably priced musicals and comedies are the draw, as well as a popular annual performance of "A Christmas Carol" that is part of the Theatre for Young Audiences. Its five show season runs from April 2013 through March 2014. With a restaurant on the premises, dinner theater packages make a night of complete entertainment.

Colleges in the western suburbs are also a force in the performing arts. College of DuPage, Elmhurst College, North Central College and Wheaton College all have concert halls and other venues dedicated to the performing arts.

COD's McAninch Arts Center is closed for a major $35 million renovation and is slated to reopen spring 2014. Plans call for a new art gallery — the Cleve Carney Art Space, named for a local art patron — and a renovated mainstage theater.

With the addition of the 13,000-square-foot, 650-seat Wentz Concert Hall, North Central College, realized a dream of being a magnet for the musical performing arts. It is a showcase for concerts by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and DuPage Symphony as well as recitals by soloists with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and everything in-between.

For those who aspire to the spotlight, The School of Performing Arts, located in Naperville's historic Fifth Avenue Station, trains tomorrow's performers in theater, music and dance. Dancers also look to Salt Creek Ballet in Westmont for pointers in ballet and jazz for those as young as 3 years old to teens and adults.

Young actors receive training at Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles. This professional company offers classes, summer camps, workshops and audition-based theatrical productions for children ages 6-16.

The FVR Performing Arts Academy, under the auspices of Fox Valley Repertory Company, educates young people ages 3 to 19 in the theater arts. Based at Pheasant Run, FVR offers a popular summer camp, as well as acting classes, performance workshops, and youth ensemble productions.

Whether a patron or a professional, an audience member or an amateur talent, all of the western suburbs is your stage.

A burst of thunderstorm activity across the Chicago area on Sunday afternoon resulted in a death and multiple injuries at an event in west suburban Wood Dale, the collapse of a dome in northwest suburban Rosemont and the temporary evacuation of the music festival Lollapalooza in Grant Park downtown.

The father of a 20-year-old Carol Stream, Ill., woman who drowned at Indiana's Porter Beach on Friday night identified her body Sunday afternoon after a rescue team pulled her from Lake Michigan, authorities said.

Clayton Richard pitched six innings of one-run ball and hit an RBI double Sunday as the Cubs held on for a 4-3 victory over the Brewers. Closer Hector Rondon allowed three hits in the ninth before retiring Logan Schafer on a line drive to center field with the tying run at second to end the game....